As the world turns, injustice continues. And as injustice continues, the Kurds continue to be without a voice...

Last year, a group by the name of The Children’s Voices of Diyarbakir that consists of Kurdish youth aged 8 to 16 years of age, many who are orphaned, received a rare opportunity to participate in a World Music Festival in California. The kids put on a wonderful performance that could - and perhaps did - even put tears of joy to the eyes of non-Kurdish attendees as much as they did for Kurdish attendees.

This Kurdish youth group is composed of mostly orphans and was put together through a program initiated by Kurds in Turkey to help get the youth off the streets by engaging them in positive activities. At the festival in California, the kids sang a wide range of traditional Kurdish folk songs, played instruments, and even danced for the audience.

Now, back in Turkey, a few of them are facing charges by Turkish prosecutors for singing these songs in California...

3 Kurdish teenagers could stand trial for singing rebel song in US

The Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey: A lawyer says three Kurdish teenagers could stand trial for allegedly singing a Kurdish rebel song under rebel flags during a music festival in the United States in October.

Defense lawyer Baran Pamuk says the teenagers were part of a 15-member chorus that allegedly sang a song called “Enemy” during a tour of San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He says an indictment demands their prosecution on charges of spreading the separatist propaganda of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is fighting the Turkish state.

Pamuk said Tuesday a court will decide whether to hear the case. The three are aged between 16 and 17.

Well, the song that was actually sung by these children is entitled, “Ey Reqîb”, which is translated to “Hey Guard”. The song comes from a poem written by a late Kurdish political prisoner from Iraqi Kurdistan named Dildar (1917-1948) who wrote the poem in prison, hence the name.

Nowadays, people tend to translate the title of the song to “Hey Enemy”, as the prosecution did. The song is familiar to Kurds all over the world and has become known as the Kurdish national anthem.

Apparently singing this old piece from 1938 is considered a crime in Turkey, as are the so-called rebel flags that these kids were singing in front of. (The “rebel flags” were actually the Kurdish flag, and not exactly the flag of any particular rebel group or party.) The flag has become the official flag of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, as has the anthem.

News of these children appeared in the Turkish media first in order to rile up the Turkish public by claiming the children were spreading “separatist propaganda” like the AP article states above. Now the Turkish prosecution is working hard to put these children in prison… sadly, we all know what happens to Kurdish children in the custody of officers. (See the video of the Turkish officer breaking a 15-year-old’s arm in front of the camera here.)

By the way, in case you are wondering what happened to the 15-year-old in that video, Progressive Historians summed up a sequence of events on their site about his situation... he is in jail. For a few days, his father had been worried sick about his whereabouts until he saw the video of his son’s arm being broken on Kurdish TV. It was then his father, who can hardly afford it, set out to hire lawyers to defend his son from charges that Turkish prosecutors are planning on pressing against him. (Shouldn’t the officers torturing him be the ones on trial?)

According to the Hakkari Bar Association in Turkey, his arm was indeed broken (despite denials by the Turkish police) and lawyers who were able to visit the boy said his arm is wrapped in bandages.

There is no news as to whether he will be released.